In this article Steve DeMott shares some advice he gives to almost every mix he consults on. Do you recognise any of these from your mixes?

Spend enough time training other engineers and you begin to see patterns. Certain things seem to pop up time and again. When I help younger engineers with their mixing skills I often have a very wide range of experience levels that I work with, but there are a few issues that pop up over and over among most of them. I could say that a lot of it is inexperience and self-doubt, but I honestly think the three issues I’m going to address are endemic of the marketing that is done to our industry. We get bombarded with messages of “use what the pros use…”, “the secret weapons of the pros…”, or “pros do this on every mix.” You get the idea.   Our inboxes are filled with these messages. I’m not trying to tell you what the “pros” do or don’t do (I mean, it depends on the pro you’re referring to I suppose), but I am going to point out three areas in which I often see problems in mixes, and three simple things you can do right now to improve your mixes.

Don’t Overuse Saturation

Saturation is a big buzzword, and because of that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of saturation plugins on the market right now. There are models of tape decks and consoles that add those specific saturation types as well as models of high end mastering saturators (like the BlackBox or Vertigo). Couple those with built-in saturation, like Avid’s Heat, and the saturation many other plugins add to their processing (such as channel strips or compressors), and you have a myriad of places you could be adding saturation to your audio sources. Used with constraint saturation can be a beautiful spice, but It’s also really easy to overcook a mix by using too much.

If you’re adding any sort of saturation, make sure you are comparing it on/off, and making sure what you are doing to the mix is an improvement. Keep it subtle and if you aren’t sure whether or not it’s better with it on, just leave it off. The litmus test should be “it stays if it’s an obvious improvement”. Don’t fall into the trap of leaving something on because you’re not sure if it’s better or not, and you think you need it. If you’re not hearing the difference, you can’t be sure it’s not doing anything good for you, which means you don’t need it.

Refrain From Too Many Plugins

We are living in interesting times. We have hundreds of plugins available to us at any one time (at last count I had 758 plugins in my list). It’s truly an embarrassment of riches. And, I know it sometimes feels like you need to pile on the plugins or you’re not really earning your keep as a mixer. Also, surely you need to use as many of your plugins as possible to justify those purchases, right?

The reality is that most young engineers use too many plugins, and end up doing more harm than good. You could use a single compressor and EQ on each channel and get 90% of your mix done. Add a couple of reverbs, a delay or two and you’re probably 99% done. If your mix isn’t coming together with minimal processing, 3 EQs on a track probably isn’t going to be the answer. Don’t be afraid to keep things simple. It’s rarely the wrong choice.

Stick To An Overall Sound

Once upon a time, you would mix on a big analogue console and that console’s sound was all over your mix. Every track went through a channel on the console and it added a cohesiveness that made things sound glued together. In the digital world we can opt to have all the drums go through an API channel strip while we have the vocals all go through a Neve and then use an SSL for the rest of the instruments. The problem with this approach is that you have 3 different flavours going on at the same time. There’s no cohesiveness.

Pick a sound for the mix and stick to it. Committing to an overall sound from the start will do more to glue your mix together than almost anything else you can do. If you don’t want to use a channel strip, just use the same EQ and compressor on every channel, saving a few specialty items for submixes, a highlight track, or your master 2-bus.

And there you have it, the 3 points I make on almost every mix I consult on. 

Contributor Article

As you may know, the blog is mainly written by a small dedicated staff team, and as always, content is provided at no cost to the reader. In addition, alongside our staff, some contributors generously offer their insights and expertise without monetary compensation. These contributors are music and post professionals who are passionate about giving back to the community from their wealth of experience.

Recognising that some community members may wish to express their appreciation more tangibly, we've decided to introduce donation links where appropriate. These links highlight the individuals behind some of the excellent content and provide an avenue for those who wish to support them financially. 100% of any donation goes to the writer.

Please know there's absolutely no pressure to contribute. It's simply a way for those who feel inclined to show their support in a tangible manner. We deeply appreciate the community's engagement and value your continued readership. Thank you for being part of our journey.